Brewmaster Update: More AoE Tools, Proving Grounds Preview, a new Podcast, and more!

This week, we’ve seen the first major revamp for Brewmasters, this time dealing with our AoE abilities. We get a better look at the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Challenges of Proving Grounds. And Episode 0 of Monk Meditation is out!

Changes to Rushing Jade Wind and Chi Burst

There haven’t been official patch notes for these changes yet, only datamined spells. And those datamined spells are a bit confusing so I will summarize:

Without playing with it, it’s not clear just how much better this new Rushing Jade Wind is compared to our out-of-the-box Spinning Crane Kick. If you take a look on the PTR, you’ll see that is is pretty much all the good stuff of Spinning Crane Kick without any of the bad.

RJW Has no channel like SCK does. It might have a short (<1sec) animation, or maybe that’s only the lag I was experiencing on the PTR. You can Keg Smash immediately after.

RKW deals the same amount of damage per second as SCK, but you can do things while it is active, unlike SCK. It also lasts 4.5 seconds, compared to SCK’s default 2.2 seconds.

While it has no cooldown, casting a second RJW while the buff from the first is still active will only extend the buff, it won’t double it.

Overall, this change makes the RJW the talent you want to take for sustained AoE damage. It also makes add pickup easier since you’re not stuck channeling. However, we do lose the functionality of the old RJW, which was frequently used as a ranged pickup tool and the common choice when Xuen was unusable. Luckily, most of the issues with Xuen should be resolved with all of his recent changes. And as for the ranged pickup…

Chi Burst – No longer requires a target. It is aimed in front of you similar to the current Rushing Jade Wind.

Chi Burst is becoming a free, healing version of Rushing Jade Wind! The downside is that it still has a 1 second cast, so not quite so easy to use while moving. Both these changes will make us even better at AoE damage, which puts the earlier Keg Smash nerf into perspective. In the end, our AoE is going to be much stronger.

Proving Grounds

I’ve had the chance to try out the Bronze, Silver, and Gold tanking challenges. They’re pretty fun.

The tank challenges give you a single NPC who’s both a healer and damage dealer. She does roughly 4-5x your dps, so don’t underestimate her. She heals through a HoT that’s active 100% of the time, unless you run out of her line of sight. She does pull mobs before you get a chance to aggro them, which can be frustrating but it’s also a realistic representation of the real world. There are barricades around the area to practice avoiding problems with line of sight. The NPC won’t dps if the adds are out of LoS.

Bronze Challenge

This is the challenge that’s aimed at pre-LFR tanks. That is, if you complete the Bronze Challenge, you should be able to tank LFR. It tests your ability to:

Manage low damage input,

Pick up adds fast enough that they don’t kill your healer.

Silver Challenge

This challenge is a bit more difficult. Ideally, if you can pass Silver you’re ready for Normal raids. It tests your ability to:

Pick up adds from range,

Manage casters with interrupts, stuns, etc,

Deal with moderate magical burst,

Place adds in the proper locations,

Stay out of bad things yourself,

Manage aggro wipes and fast taunts.

Gold Challenge

This difficulty is closer to preparing you for Heroic raiding. In Gold, you encounter boss-like mobs that hit very hard and require movement and cooldown management. You have to deal with the same mechanics as Silver, plus learn how to:

Position adds while being conscious of damage dealer positions,

React to adds with announced massive attacks,

Dance similar to the Will of the Emperor encounter,

Manage continuous spawns.

Monk Meditation: Episode 0

As promised, here is the video of our first podcast. We experienced surprisingly few problems, given it was our first attempt. Having podcast veterans around definitely helped.

The inaugural podcast for Monk Meditation. This week, Chaithi, Sunnier, Ayr, Daikatsu, and Naoyuki join together to discuss Flex raids, proving grounds, and legendary cloaks. Jihn’rok the Breaker is in our sights as we talk about tips for each spec to outperform! We also discuss PTR changes and discuss whether the sky is falling for Windwalkers or not. This is Monk meditation, episode 0.